Your daily Selection of IRIN Africa PlusNews reports, 10/27/2003

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U N I T E D N A T I O N S

Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

Integrated Regional Information Network

CONTENT:

1 - ETHIOPIA: UN Day marked in Addis Ababa

2 - ZAMBIA: WFP targets HIV/AIDS orphans in urban areas

1 - ETHIOPIA: UN Day marked in Addis Ababa

ADDIS ABABA, 24 October (PLUSNEWS) - The war against HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia

has yet to be won, despite the fact that infection rates remain at 2001

levels, said Dr Getachew Demeke, acting head of UNAIDS, on Friday.

Ethiopia has the third-highest number of people in the world living with

the HIV virus, but is now receiving massive financial support - around US

$200 million - to combat its spread. " It could have spread like a forest

fire, but a great deal has been done, and we are going in the right

direction, " said Getachew.

His comments coincided with UN Day, when senior officials of 13 different

UN agencies in Ethiopia gave an account of the successes they had achieved

and what more needed to be done.

Sam Nyambi, the UN country representative, told journalists that many

challenges remained in Ethiopia, one of the world's 10 poorest countries.

However, he said, " If you look at the situation in Ethiopia, you must ask

what would have happened if this totality of efforts - from the

government, the partners, the UN - had not been there. Obviously the

country would be in a much more worse-off situation " .

Bjorn Ljungqvist, who heads the UN’s Children’s Fund, said that greater

financial resources needed to be made available to the country. Ethiopia

receives only US $12 per capita, whereas the African per capita average is

$25.

He went on to note that the country's human resource of 70 million people

had been massively under-utilised. " In a country where education has so

often been left behind, how can you have the human resources to be able to

address all the multiple challenges of development? " he asked.

[ENDS]

2 - ZAMBIA: WFP targets HIV/AIDS orphans in urban areas

JOHANNESBURG, 27 October (PLUSNEWS) - The rise in the number of children

orphaned by HIV/AIDS in Zambia has forced the World Food Programme (WFP)

to scale up its assistance programmes in some of the country's urban

centres.

WFP information officer Lena Savelli told PlusNews on Monday that although

food security in Zambia continued to improve, there was growing concern

over the plight of vulnerable children, most of whom were left to support

households after the death of a parent.

" We are not feeding nearly as many people as we did last year, but the

lack of coping mechanisms among the most vulnerable households, especially

AIDS orphans, remains extremely serious, " Savelli said.

The urban programme, operational at 135 sites in the capital, Lusaka,

Kafue (north) and Chongwe (east), reaches 49,155 children in community

schools and 22,790 households. When the programme started in January, WFP

was feeding some 30,000 vulnerable children and 10,000 poor households.

WFP provides the children with a hot breakfast of fortified porridge at

their school and, contingent upon the child's regular attendance at

school, a monthly take-home ration of 50 kg of maize or cereal for the

caretaking family.

" It is hoped that the hot porridge the children receive at school each

morning will encourage regular attendance, since research has shown that

it is often these vulnerable children who are pulled out of school during

a crisis. The programme also increases the knowledge and awareness among

children and their households of disease prevention. Caretakers of these

children are given talks on HIV prevention when they pick up their monthly

rations, " she added.

Although it was difficult to confirm, it was estimated there were between

1 million and 1.8 million AIDS orphans in Zambia, WFP said.

According to UNAIDS almost 22 percent of Zambians are living with

HIV/AIDS.

[ENDS]

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